Thursday, October 14, 2010

Rebecca L. (Tunnell) VeatchRebecca L. (Tunnell) Veatch passed away surrounded by friends and family on Friday, October 8, 2010. Becky was the beloved mother of four children and loving wife of Michael Veatch. She left this life after a courageous eight month battle with sarcoma cancer. Despite the difficulty of her struggle, Becky maintained a positive, upbeat attitude and laughed all the way to the end.Becky was born on January 7, 1980 in Fairbanks, Alaska. She graduated from Snohomish High School in 1998. Her high school nick-name, "Amazon Woman", exemplified her talent for tackling every obstacle that stood in her way. After high school, Becky attended massage therapy school in Orem, Utah and graduated at the head of her class. It was there that she met Michael and married him in the Mt. Timpanogas LDS Temple a mere four months later.After helping support her husband through college, Becky was a stay at home mom by choice. She loved her children with all of her heart and loved to see them laugh and play. Becky always had a ready smile and faced trials and difficulties with optimism and good humor. Her hobbies included scrapbooking, sewing for her children, doing fun things as a family and just having a good time with those that she loved. Becky was always thinking of ways to make people feel special. She enjoyed shopping the sales at Target and rarely paid full price for anything. She was never late paying a bill and her frugality was legendary. Her goal was for her family to live within their means so she could be a stay at home mom in order to spend time with their children.Becky was an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She relied on the Lord throughout her struggle with cancer and gained strength from the many prayers in her behalf. Over the past eight months, she saw the hand of her Heavenly Father as he blessed her family in many ways. She fought the battle courageously and often wowed her doctors with her positive attitude and will-power.She will be missed by her husband, Michael; and her four children, Madelynn, Abigail, Natalie and Conner. She is also survived by her parents, James and Linda Tunnell; and her siblings, Annalia Romero, Sarah Kang, Rachel Tunnell and James Tunnell.Her older brother, Jonathan, set an example of courage and faith in fighting his own battle with cancer seventeen years ago. She was the proud aunt of 34 nieces and nephews. She took great delight in instigating tickle fights with them, which she always won.Funeral services will be held at 12:30 p.m., Saturday, October 16, at the LDS Chapel in Lake Stevens at 10120 Chapel Hill Rd. The viewing begins at 11:00 a.m. Friends and family members are encouraged to bring memories and stories about Becky on 4 x 6 cards.

Rebecca L. (Tunnell) VeatchRebecca L. (Tunnell) Veatch passed away surrounded by friends and family on Friday, October 8, 2010. Becky was the beloved mother of four children and loving wife of Michael Veatch. She left this life after a courageous eight month battle with sarcoma cancer. Despite the difficulty of her struggle, Becky maintained a positive, upbeat attitude and laughed all the way to the end.Becky was born on January 7, 1980 in Fairbanks, Alaska. She graduated from Snohomish High School in 1998. Her high school nick-name, "Amazon Woman", exemplified her talent for tackling every obstacle that stood in her way. After high school, Becky attended massage therapy school in Orem, Utah and graduated at the head of her class. It was there that she met Michael and married him in the Mt. Timpanogas LDS Temple a mere four months later.After helping support her husband through college, Becky was a stay at home mom by choice. She loved her children with all of her heart and loved to see them laugh and play. Becky always had a ready smile and faced trials and difficulties with optimism and good humor. Her hobbies included scrapbooking, sewing for her children, doing fun things as a family and just having a good time with those that she loved. Becky was always thinking of ways to make people feel special. She enjoyed shopping the sales at Target and rarely paid full price for anything. She was never late paying a bill and her frugality was legendary. Her goal was for her family to live within their means so she could be a stay at home mom in order to spend time with their children.Becky was an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She relied on the Lord throughout her struggle with cancer and gained strength from the many prayers in her behalf. Over the past eight months, she saw the hand of her Heavenly Father as he blessed her family in many ways. She fought the battle courageously and often wowed her doctors with her positive attitude and will-power.She will be missed by her husband, Michael; and her four children, Madelynn, Abigail, Natalie and Conner. She is also survived by her parents, James and Linda Tunnell; and her siblings, Annalia Romero, Sarah Kang, Rachel Tunnell and James Tunnell.Her older brother, Jonathan, set an example of courage and faith in fighting his own battle with cancer seventeen years ago. She was the proud aunt of 34 nieces and nephews. She took great delight in instigating tickle fights with them, which she always won.Funeral services will be held at 12:30 p.m., Saturday, October 16, at the LDS Chapel in Lake Stevens at 10120 Chapel Hill Rd. The viewing begins at 11:00 a.m. Friends and family members are encouraged to bring memories and stories about Becky on 4 x 6 cards.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Becky passed away last Friday with all of her family around her. It was actually just the kind of gathering Becky would have orchestrated because she was always trying to figure out ways for all of us to get together. She hated when one sibling would be missing from plans and on Friday, everyone was there. It was also just the way we had hoped it would happen. Besides the horrible, horrible headache that she had the day before (which was from the tumors increased growth), she passed away having felt a relatively small amount of pain. The doctors had discussed different ways she might pass away a few weeks ago and there were so many worse ways it could have happened. We had all been praying for her to go quietly with minimal pain and Heavenly Father answered our prayers.

Another thing we noticed? Becky's two youngest have always had perma-runny noses. We had remarked on the miracle that those runny noses disappeared while Becky was going through chemo, which was great because of her weakened immune system. Well, the runny noses are back.

Heavenly Father really does love us and has given us so many things over the past eight months to ease the path. He knows we have to experience these trials, but he still finds ways to show us that he is in control and that he does want us to be happy. Yesterday the girls and I were talking (they are so great at telling us exactly how they are feeling) and Madelynn told me that she was sure it was hard to lose a sister. I told her that it is for I have lost a best friend. I will miss her everytime I want to call her or want to get together with her. BUT I told her that it is nothing compared to losing a mother. Last night, as Becky's niece left holding her little boy, my mom cried for the mother's touch that Connor will not have. The other day, a Connor that is normally very wiggly and active cuddled me for a good 30 minutes (and no, he wasn't tired.) He kept looking me in the eyes and I knew he missed his mom just as much as the rest of the family.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

I am trying to distract myself while waiting for Becky news. (really horrible headaches, mri's....you get the idea.) So I thought I would recap conference a little because...I love conference. We have figured out with our little gaggle of girls that our efforts to listen to conference at home are pretty futile. Kids running around, at normal volume and the speakers are easily drowned out by well meaning kids who have too many toys around to want to sit still enough to listen. For this very reason, we dress everyone up and head off to the church to watch the broadcast with the other 2 families within 30 minutes that do the same thing. When they are in a dark chapel, they at least fill restricted to whispering and hear tidbits of goodness while I get to hear at least 5 times as much as I would at home. (and 1/4 of what I would hear if I didn't have my kids there, but Elder Bednar helps me feel fabulous none the less.) We made it to all 4 sessions, but the two that included Lilly were the ones that I have 2 lines of notes on. I have a standard for my girls and it is that they misbehave in age order. And fittingly enough, Rachel took pretty intense notes, Autumn and Chloe worked in their workbooks I printed up, Hannah goofed off a little more, Elise colored and talked bugs (but did keep it to a whisper) and Lilly....distracted us all with her cuteness. When President Uchtdorf spoke, I held her close and whispered, "Lilly, that is Dieter F. Uchtdorf. He is an apostle. Let's listen to him." She turned to our friends behind us and said "That's Dieter Uchtdorf." And now let's fast forward to Wednesday. In an effort to rationalize a trip to the beach, we listened to some old conference talks. Dieter F. Uchtdorf started speaking and what did Lilly say? "That's Dieter F. Uchtdorf." And tonight at dinner she told Chris "Dieter F. Uchtdorf talked in our car." And there we go. All of the wiggling and slight chaos was totally worth it.

Being blessed with 6 girls brings lots of joy and lots of chaos into our house. We get to do girly to the sixth degree and I enjoy every moment of it. Almost. My poor husband is outnumbered in a major way, but he did ask for it when he said that he wanted all girls, a mere 14 years ago.